Without a doubt, the American Girl doll line was a major influence on my interest in history. When I was eight, my grandmother bought me an Elizabeth Cole doll, sold as part of the Best Friends line that ended in 2014. Through a rapidly expanding collection of books, I learned about the period just before the Revolutionary War, slavery in the American South, immigrant settlers in the Midwest, and plenty of other time periods in American history. Ultimately, American Girl has made a successful product out of targeting 8 to 12 year olds with historical stories of girls their own age. However, we have to ask a certain question: since these stories are historical fiction, how accurate are they? How much do these characters conform to what society would expect of them in their era?

American Girl introduced one character in particular, 9-year-old Felicity Merriman, in 1991. Her stories, written by Valerie Tripp, take place in 1774 Williamsburg, Virginia and center on the growing unrest in the American colonies before the American Revolution breaks out. Felicity is a spunky redhead who is a bit of a tomboy. She loves horses and working in her garden but dislikes most domestic activities, such as cooking and sewing. Her love of horses, while not necessarily male-dominated, is an outdoor, non-domestic activity that continues throughout her series.

Though her impetuousness lessens as she grows, Felicity keeps her outspokenness focused on improving the treatment of horses and understanding the colonial unrest, both of which were typically masculine interests at the time. This is part of the reason why I chose to focus on her narrative since Felicity’s goals remain nonconformist throughout. Notably, Felicity’s best friend, Elizabeth Cole, counters her personality by being more soft-spoken and ladylike, which shows how girls during the time period likely would have acted.

Throughout the series, Felicity’s main goal is to protect Penny, a horse who is being mistreated by her owner, the cruel drunkard Jiggy Nye. Partway through her series, Felicity begins taking lessons about how to be a lady from a woman named Miss Manderly, along with Elizabeth and her older sister Annabelle. Though Felicity does gain ladylike domestic skills, such as serving tea and dancing, she retains the spirit that makes her who she is.

It is obvious that to craft a children’s story set in 1774, Valerie Tripp needed to take artistic license with her subject.

The debate about whether the colonies should be independent is explored but only with a light touch. In fact, families and friends are not permanently estranged over the quandary. Even though Felicity’s family are Patriots and Elizabeth’s Loyalists, they are still allowed to be friends. For example, when Elizabeth’s father is jailed for his sympathies, Felicity and her father visit him, bringing blankets and food and citing friendship as the reason.

Another example of a historical inaccuracy concerns Mr. Merriman’s apprentice Ben, a staunch Patriot, and Felicity’s grandfather, a Loyalist. Granted, Grandfather’s main concern is not necessarily that Ben is a Patriot but that Ben will abandon his apprenticeship to fight in the upcoming war. Ben assures the family that he will complete the work, which solves the issue without any major conflict involved. On the contrary, a real-life example is that Benjamin Franklin excluded his firstborn son William from his will because he could never accept that his son was a Loyalist. Though the novels center around this issue, because of the target audience, they never take the effects as far as history did.

It’s also important to discuss that Felicity’s family is middle class, while Elizabeth’s is slightly wealthier, and both lifestyles are well-described, as is Felicity’s list of activities, chores, and schoolwork. For the most part, this gives a thorough view of Felicity’s and Elizabeth’s daily lives so the reader can imagine it for themselves. Since the two girls have a slightly different class status, readers can see how different people lived depending on their professions, which was fairly accurate in the story.

One example of class differences occurs when, as the middle-class daughter of a shopkeeper, Felicity is expected to act like other young ladies, regardless of class. Though Felicity’s parents exclaim that she is flighty and thoughtless, scolding her for not being more of a lady, they do not chastise or punish her as much as a girl actually living in this era most likely would have been.

As Felicity grows older, her free time would be curtailed further because her mother would expect her to help with the domestic tasks as the eldest daughter. She would already know how to do the chores and would most likely take on some of her mother’s full-time duties as well. That’s the main reason families used to have large numbers of children; if illness or anything else killed one of your children, there were others who could still work. In this case, the fact that Felicity is able to avoid most domestic activities is historically inaccurate.

In the past, children were often thought of as miniature adults, and American Girl does its best to carefully dispel that concept by way of its girls maintaining passions and leisure time just for themselves. The series never gets to the point where teaching Felicity the ladylike arts would be immediately necessary for marriage. She remains a child, and with that, she maintains her tomboyish personality. It is true that in real life, girls would need to curb overexcitable natures in order to conform to society’s expectations, but since this is historical fiction, Tripp—and Felicity—are allowed some leeway.

American Girl’s other historical characters show a similar pattern. Usually, the main character is tomboyish and rash, while the best friend is more calm and dependable.

For example, Samantha Parkington and Nellie O’Malley are best friends in 1904 New York. Samantha, who grew up with wealth, spends her days climbing trees and avoiding her nasty neighbor Eddie, while Nellie, a servant in Eddie’s house, works and tries to keep her sisters out of trouble, which is a similar narrative to Felicity’s.

Additionally, the novels for every historical character tackle societal issues of the day and usually take the stance that is most modern to appeal to their modern audiences. For example, in Mary Ellen’s stories, which were set in 1955, the word “cripple” is used in regard to people with polio. Mary Ellen’s mother immediately snaps that they don’t use that word. This response is, of course, modern, as well as politically correct, even though it’s not historically accurate.

At the end of the day, Felicity Merriman is allowed to be who she is, even as she undergoes some chiding for her tomboyish behavior. American Girl ultimately sits on the fine line between coddling its characters in their youth-protected narratives and selling a relatively accurate children’s narrative that also happens to tell a great story. I’d say it leans more toward the latter. The novel’s light treatment of the negative effects that the upcoming war has on families and friends shows the consideration of the target audience, yet Felicity’s personal growth and passions are ground in the strength of the narrative. Perhaps the stories can stimulate an interest in history amongst young girls, which is definitely a plus, but the books themselves don’t deliver historical events as accurately as they could. But, they did evoke my own interest, so I can’t complain too much.